


How Asher Got His Arm Back

by nihlisticFireball



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Decima Saves the Destiny Universe, F/M, There's actually not that much sex, yet - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:54:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27674318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nihlisticFireball/pseuds/nihlisticFireball
Summary: Asher is starting to realize having he might like having feelings, and that makes death scary. Meanwhile, his lover made him promises she intends to keep.
Relationships: Asher Mir/Original Character(s), Female Guardian/Asher Mir, Guardian/Asher Mir
Kudos: 5





	How Asher Got His Arm Back

**Author's Note:**

> This one's been cooking for a long minute. Expect at least one fully fleshed out sexy fun time and a whole lotta 'this-makes-sense-in-my-brain-so-why-not-everyone-else's'.

It was ten minutes after eleven on a cold mid-November night and Asher Mir had to push his shoulder forward to make his way through the gathered crowds at the base of the Tower. Wet, loose snow had fallen off and on throughout the day. It was just below freezing, and the conditions were not dire enough to force people inside. 

Some came to the Tower to seek alms, food, warm clothing, or medicine. Others were commuting, either from work or to it, in the Tower or elsewhere. Food stalls and scavenger’s shops stayed open at almost all hours, hawkers with tireless voices calling to would-be patrons as they busied their hands displaying their newest marvel for sale, or chopping vegetables with impossibly sharp knives at insane speeds without even looking. 

A small Guardian-piloted spacecraft buzzed rather close overhead and sent Asher’s cloaks wafting in the bydraft. He clenched the hood ties at his throat with his left hand and kept his head down— it was not always safe to have blue skin down here in the City streets. Also, he _was_ legally dead— not that anyone down here would recognize him, of course, but it only took one pair of loose lips to make it back to Zavala before he was back on active duty. 

Officially the word was all contact with Gensym Scribe Asher Mir had been lost when Io had been devoured by the Darkness. Without his titles and research assistants, he was just another tired, misplaced Awoken, scrounging a life amongst the hordes of humans doing the same in their City. He checked the street for errant Sparrow traffic before crossing, thinking again of himself standing before that Radiolarian lake, the Penrose Vortex that was to be his headstone, only to be swept up in wings of fire and _love_ , the fate he chose for himself snatched away by the greedy fingers of someone who actually cared if he lived or died. 

Only five people knew he still drew breath: Decima and her fireteam, who had saved him; Ikora Rey, head Warlock Vanguard; and Eris Morn, old friend. 

Unofficially, Asher spent his time secretly conferring with Ikora Rey on the Darkness and continuing his quest to repair his arm, his Ghost, and his life. The former was easier than the latter. For that, at least, there was a routine: Decima and her team were assigned to Europa to assist in the battling— and harnessing, now— of the Darkness. She would return home after her deployed stint and be subjected to a seemingly endless amount of tests, hooked up to machines, and probed in places he did not know probes could be placed. She had agreed to it _only_ if he were the one administering the tests. Because she trusted him. For some Traveller-only-knows reason, even after all the experiments, certain death quests, and times he had thrown her directly into the line of fire, she still trusted him. 

So he collected her data and sifted through the numbers, preparing inconclusive reports and keeping it professional— all tests carried out were strictly for the production of a scientific result, on paper.

Off the record, he worried. The Stasis was changing her and it scared him. It had to scare one of them and it certainly was not her— Decima of house Zula, the scion of her family, strongest Lightbearer in recent history, did not do _scared_. 

But every time she came home her feet and hands were colder and her lips tinged bluer; it took her longer to flood her system with Solar Light and bring warmth back to her extremities, her eyes, and her smile. He could not caution her against communing with the Darkness because she would just do it _more_. He could not argue she did not have a choice because she was _Decima Zula_ and she _always_ had a choice. 

The barking of a dog startled Asher out of his thoughts and he realized he had been standing in front of the door to their shared abode for quite some time. With no true Ghost to grant him access, he keyed the passcode and stepped in out of the cold. 

Each active-duty Vanguard member was afforded their own apartment in or near the Tower— somehow, space was found for it, although it meant they were packed in like sardines. Each living quarter was basic: a bunk, a kitchen, a bathroom, and if they were lucky, a window. It was paid for by Vanguard activity, and there was a quota of strikes, patrols, and other assorted missions and activities necessary to keep up the rent, as it were. 

But Decima, well, Decima was a Zula, which meant she was from _money_

Originally founded in Golden Age luxury retreats and vacation destinations, the post-Collapse Zula name was built on technology to destroy enemies with extreme prejudice. Most of the Zula tech had been well and truly outlawed, banished, destroyed, or vaulted on Vanguard orders…

…but they still had their money. Some people owned _planets_ , Decima’s family owned _systems_. 

But on a smaller, more local scale, it meant she had property in the city— two, to be exact. The larger of the two homes was truly a Golden Age mansion, which she had long ago donated and had since been turned into a woman and children’s shelter. 

The other home, where he now resided with his... partner? Yes, that sounded correct— the home he lived in _with his partner_ was large enough to have two stories belonging to the same occupant, which was grandiose in the Last City. The bottom floor was an eat-in kitchen with one wall of counters and a small, glass-topped dining table big enough for two; the stairs along the back wall led to the upper story, which consisted of a decently sized master bedroom, attached bathroom, and two considerably smaller guest bedrooms, one of which Asher had claimed for his office. All in all, it was not a large living space, and the rent was _egregious_ for the bare essentials of living and two extra coat closets.

When Decima had pulled him back from the brink of his own mortality she insisted the place be his; she was already planning her next world-saving adventure and so decreed she’d ‘drop-in’ every now and again, but promised him enough distance to ensure he maintained his privacy and did not have to confront his fear of collaborative living. 

At some point, though, the house had gone from ‘his’ to ‘theirs’, and neither of them could put a finger on when that had happened.

So Asher spent his days moving back and forth between ‘his’ lab— an old Ikora Rey special from when she was in research before she went off and became Grand Poo-bah of Everything— and ‘his’ home. 

All in all, despite the constant growing ache in his lungs, the uncontrollable coughing jags, and the unsettling notion that he was running out of time, it wasn’t too bad. He had never imagined a banal death for himself— he’d always planned on going out in a blaze of Radiolarian glory— but he was slowly coming to terms with the fact that dying in his own bed next to the woman he loved did not leave such a foul taste in his mouth, after all. 

Speaking of taste. The kitchen was warm and recently occupied. A pile of dishes of questionable cleanliness was stacked haphazardly in and near the sink. A small white china bowl with a slightly-offset lid sat on the table, still steaming. Beside it, chopsticks and a spoon rested on a neatly folded napkin, and a bottle of fine-vintage white— his preferred indulgence— stood next to an upside-down wine glass. 

Asher hung his overcloak on a rack near the door and plopped down in the chair, the warmth of the kitchen permeating his body and making him feel more exhausted than he was after the chill of the night. Or, rather, it was the right amount of exhaustion, and he had just decided to stop fighting it. 

The bowl contained long rice noodles with chopped carrots and broccoli florets in a warm, salty broth. For the wine, he elected to drink straight from the bottle, letting the alcohol warm his lungs on the way down. 

Behind him, the stairs creaked. “I hope dinner is suitable to your liking?” Decima asked, her voice falsely demure. 

He didn’t bother to turn around. “It is sufficient,” he confirmed, before taking a loud slurp.

“Oh, thank goodness,” she breathed, her voice taking on some form of a lilting accent— there was the sound of her hands clapping together as, he imagined, she was mocking prayer— “I was _so_ worried you would find it distasteful, what with your _heightened_ palate and _refined_ sensibilities. And me, just a _simple_ City gal.”

Asher sniffed and narrowed his eyes at the emptying bowl. “Cooking for me and then aggravating me to want of an early grave does not a fair trade make. Do you not have something quieter you could be doing? Like sleeping, or literally, anything anywhere else?” 

Decima’s voice snapped back to normal. “Actually, I was worried about you. It’s late. I was worried Zavala found you, or you’d gotten mugged, or, like, gone senile and wandered off into the night.” 

His glare deepened. “Yes, I am old. Ha-ha. How comical. I am old, infirm, and too tired to compete with your wit and mental acuity.” He pushed away from the empty bowl and picked up the wine bottle. “Indulge the old man and let him rest.” 

“Oh? Should I change, then?” 

Asher’s eyebrows arched off his face as he finally turned in his chair. 

She was wearing one of his under-robes, the kind he would don under his armor. The buttons were undone. White fabric lay stark against the dark mahogany of her skin, the rainbow array of her scars changing in hues from ash to fresh pink over her chest, stomach, and thighs. Only the very tips of her breasts were covered, large nipples pressing against the slightly sheer material. Her face was bare, missing the blaring tangerine half-skull warpaint that she usually wore. 

Also missing were underwear. 

Asher felt his face color and he swallowed hard, praying it made a quieter noise than it seemed. 

“I said I’m old,” he snapped, his voice slightly hoarse, “not _dead._ ” 

Decima smiled as she crossed the space between the foot of the stairs and where he sat at the table, hips swaying with ease. She bent over close to him and just barely brushed her lips to his, golden eyes drifting half-closed, prompting him to shift to the edge of his seat and press up into the connection, head tilted. His left hand came up, unbidden, to slide into the fabric of the robe and cup the outer curve of her stomach, around the arch of her hip, around to her backside— 

Decima stepped back quickly and poked him gently in the center of his forehead with the pad of her finger, making him wince. “This is hardly appropriate dinner table behavior,” she scolded, hands coming to her hips. She turned with a dramatic sway of her ass and headed up the stairs. 

Like a moth to a flame, Asher followed. 

He trailed her into their bedroom, lit dimly by the lights of the City filtering in through the window sheers. Decima stood just before their bed and he caught her there, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her body back to him; his mouth went to the muscles in her neck, breath hot against her ear, and she leaned her head against him. She was shorter than him by several inches, which made tucking her into the gangly, somewhat hollowed out shape of him pleasantly simple. 

Decima was short, but she was not petite, and he let his hand trail over the curved strength of her stomach and hips and the fullness of her ass. 

She reached back and took his metal arm, his bastard arm, and pulled it forward. “I missed you,” she breathed, sliding the claw-like digit over her breasts, under the robe. _All of you_ was the unspoken remainder, the promise, and acknowledgment of love of him and his flaws. Her wholehearted acceptance of the bit of him that he could never give credence to, that still now drove him to maddening heights in search of a cure, warmed him even more than the swell of her backside pressing against the crux in his legs. 

Asher pushed the robe off her shoulder and shifted to let it slide away, ignoring the metallic clicking in the appendage. He cupped one large breast in his left hand, drawing faint, tickling lines across her stomach with his right. The cerulean frostiness of his skin against the rich, earthy darkness of her own was striking, and after so long of looking odd and mismatched to him it finally seemed _correct_. 

He seared kisses into the nook of shoulder and neck as he caressed her nipple to a point; he swept his mechanical arm behind her, pushing the rest of the robe out of the way; she dipped her shoulder to let it fall to the ground as he grabbed the meat of her thigh and pulled her back to him, his hips moving against her involuntarily. She arched into him, sighing “Why are you still dressed?” 

There was a blink and they both tumbled to the bed with no way to differentiate between who pushed and who pulled, and he found himself braced on one arm over the top of her, her back on the pillows, his mechanical hand working to pull up the corner of his shirt. He felt her fingers trace tantalizing lines on the ridges of his ribs, sliding up over the lines in his chest. He’d been stronger, once, and barrel-chested and thick, but his illness and obsession had stolen most of that away. He was still strong, but his strength was different now— lithe and lean instead of burly and brawny. He extended up, now, to jerk the shirt over his head— 

—and immediately felt his chest squeeze as a thousand painful lines of fire ripped through his lungs. He collapsed forward, Vex arm covering his mouth as he hacked and coughed thunderously, choking on what little breath he could manage to catch. 

__Decima was up in a nanosecond, maneuvering him gently with one hand and stacking pillows with the other. She let him lay almost vertical against the cushions and held him at arm's length, giving him room to breathe, as the coughing jag made the angles in his body painfully concave. She rubbed one hand, charged with Solar Light, over his back, warm and comforting._ _

__It lasted for what seemed like eons but was truly just minutes. By the time he could taste oxygen in his mouth again he had tears in his eyes and dripping bloodstains on his mechanical fingers. And Decima was still there, naked and rubbing his back— and holding onto his other hand, his flesh hand, he noticed. Or was he holding on to her?_ _

__Her Ghost, Nebula, deployed at some unknown time during his fit, hovered concernedly over his opposite shoulder, singular eyeball furrowed in concern._ _

__“Do you need the nebulizer?” Decima asked, voice quiet._ _

__“ _No_ ”,” Asher snapped, ripping his hand away from her and wiping spittle from his mouth. “No, I’m _fine_ , damn it!” He didn’t know if it was fear of his imminent death, his displeasure at seeming weak in front of others, or his frustration at the interruption of the moment which was making his temper flare, but he was _pissed_. “I’m _fine,_ I’m just dying a leisurely, excruciating, protracted and _unavoidable_ death.” _ _

__His cold blue eyes landed on Decima, narrowed and sharp enough to kill. Bitterness welled up in his mouth, echoed by the iron taste of his own blood. When he spoke, his voice was pure venom:_ _

__“Do you ever feel remorseful for _damning_ me to this hellish, continued existence? When you stepped in and prevented me from taking my _own _life into my _own_ hands? When you stole from me my only chance at a dignified, meaningful conclusion?” The more he said, the faster the words came. “When you promised me we’d find a cure because you’re the _amazing Decima Zula_ and you’ve _saved worlds_ and all you’ve done since is run around with Variks on some frozen hellscape and play buddy-buddy with the Darkness?” He was leaning up on one arm now, his face in hers, shouting now. “Of course not, because you’ve never held any responsibility for anything, at all, never thought beyond the ass-end of your own fancies, never thought about anyone’s desires but your own. Tell me, _Decima_ , do you ever look at me and feel _sorry_?!” ___ _

____For a moment they held eyes._ _ _ _

____He had seen her stare down Cabal tanks, Valus’s with guns twice her size; she had beheld inconceivable Vex constructs which rendered him a cursed mutant and left his entire fireteam _corpses_ without stopping in awe; she had cleaned up the Shore and strung up the Barons without nary a blink. _ _ _ _

____But now her golden gaze wavered, and the corner of her mouth twitched a bit, and the remorse he felt was a cold pit in his stomach._ _ _ _

____“Every damn day,” she said, barely higher than a whisper, voice lacking the confidant intones and normal vibrant pitch, “of my useless existence.”_ _ _ _

____Nebula had backed off several feet and now circled around to hover over her Guardian’s shoulder. If a Ghost’s eyes could well with tears, hers would be._ _ _ _

____Asher swallowed, throat and mouth dry. He attempted to squeeze her hand and found it was no longer there._ _ _ _

____“I’ll make you some tea,” she said, standing from the bedside and plastering a thin smile to her face. He wanted to ask her to wait but found the words not there, and besides, she was already out the door, Nebula floating behind her._ _ _ _

____He watched the space where she left, eyes not really seeing, wracked with shame and hate and the old ache of his cough. His right arm clenched hard enough to spark and he felt himself wishing the Vex curse would reach his heart and _soon_._ _ _ _

____Decima came back in a few minutes appearing composed, but Asher knew her well enough to realize she was shaken. She helped him sit up and pressed a cup of something warm and pepperminty into his hands. “Drink this, it will help.”_ _ _ _

____“Decima,” he said, his voice rough. He was unable to look at her face and instead watched the steam curling off the teacup. “I am— I am sorry.” He cleared his throat. “I was speaking out of anger and I was wrong to do so.”_ _ _ _

____It was not often he apologized. He had said some horrible things to her, over their time together, but it was all well received and returned in jest. A witty, back and forth banter, expected and, in fact, comfortable. So when Decima did not rise to the occasion, and say something to the effect of _well, what else should I expect from such an old, wrinkly chode,_ he knew something was wrong. Perhaps irreparably so. _ _ _ _

____He reached out and took her hand, then, desperately needing to touch her. He searched her face, her downcast eyes, for some hint of forgiveness, some hint of acknowledgment, that, yes, sometimes we say things we do not mean when we are angry and ill._ _ _ _

____“It’s okay,” she said, meaning it without actually meaning it._ _ _ _

____“Decima.” _Please._ "None of this is your fault." _ _ _ _

____She smiled at him, reached up, and ran gentle fingers through his hair. “It’s fine, Asher. Don’t worry about it.” She cupped his head and pulled his temple close for a kiss. “Drink your tea and we’ll go to bed.”_ _ _ _

____He wanted to believe he was forgiven, he really did. But Asher had never subscribed to the logical fallacy of hope. He fought the waver out of his voice. “How long are you home for?”_ _ _ _

____“Three days of shore leave,” she said._ _ _ _

____Three days of leave. Not resupplying or mandated rest. Leave, to go anywhere._ _ _ _

____And she had chosen to come here. And get screamed at, and berated._ _ _ _

____“You don’t want to—,” he fumbled for his words, feeling inadequate, _pale_ , “—finish—,” _ _ _ _

____She actually laughed at that. “We can worry about that when you’re feeling better. We’ve got time.” She snuck her legs under the blankets, turned her back to him, and laid down._ _ _ _

____Asher drained his cup if only to humor her, to appease her, and set it on the bedside table. He fit his sore, sorry self around her, slipped his arm over her waist, and tried to ignore how cold he felt as the lights went off._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____

* * *

____  
_When Asher awoke the next morning and she was not beside him, he was not surprised. It was only when he searched the house and could not find her that he started to become frightened.__  
_  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I took your space apocalypse-topia and added capitalism. What else can I ruin? 
> 
> Updates Sundays, if anyone cares.


End file.
